Lithium Insertion Mechanism in Copper Indium Tin Sulfospinels Studied by ¹¹⁹Sn Mössbauer Spectroscopy and Rietveld Analysis

Abstract

Chalcogenide compounds with spinel-related structure provide suitable host materials for insertion of lithium ions. The occurrence of a great number of empty sites is particularly favourable to guest ions and allows a three-dimensional insertion. These properties make spinel materials interesting candidates for applications as electrodes in lithium-ion batteries. Since the observation by Eisenberg [1] that lithium could be reversibly inserted into transition metal sulfospinels, many chalcogenide spinels of transition metals [2,3] and post-transition metals like FeIn₂S₄ or In₂Sn_0.5S₄ [4,5] have been studied as host lattices for lithium insertion.